Big Thought

Free becomes an economically viable price when the marginal costs of transferring digital information moves towards zero; which changes the structure of traditional markets.

 Ideas, Implications, and Questions

• How do we support people who are creating and disseminating information?  When addressing the downward trend of newspaper circulation and ensuing layoffs, Chris writes “There may be more of them (journalists), not fewer, as the ability to participate in journalism extends beyond the credentialed halls of of traditional media.” (pg 235)  It can be hard, though, for a blogging reporter to support themselves and family.  I think that has to be more adequately understood.
• Can advertising really support all of the free content on the internet?  What are the limits?  What happens when people use open source software and Microsoft has to downsize?  Is it OK that we don’t make as much money if we don’t have to spend as much?  I don’t think that we’ve figured out the answers to these questions on a societal level.  I think that Chris is also addressing a post-industrial economy where by comparison with past generations, we don’t have to spend a lot of time on “survival needs”. 
• As someone who is deeply entrenched within the information economy, I have consider how much I can distribute for free and how I can use that as a sustainable business model.  Two things that I found useful:
  • Differentiating myself, and creating a superior product, is important – because prices among undifferentiated competitors falls to the marginal costs (pg 127).  I have to find  the challenges that my potential clients are struggling with, and solve them.
  • Free can provide a powerful marketing tool.  If I can provide   valuable information that demonstrates competence, I can provide a higher level service for which people will pay (e.g. free blog articles to promote one-on-one coaching and public speaking).  Part of the creativity lies in finding out what that higher level service is, as Chris writes, “The way to compete with Free is to move past the abundance to find the adjacent scarcity” (pg 231).
• Chris provides a powerful list of “ Free Rules” that encapsulate a lot of his thinking:

1. If it’s digital, sooner or later it’s going to be free.
2. Atoms would like to be free, too, but they’re not so pushy about it.
3. You can’t stop free
4. You can make money from Free
5. Redefine your market
6. Round down
7. Sooner or later you will compete with free
8. Embrace waste
9. Free makes other things more valuable
10. Manage for abundance, not scarcity

Should you read this book?  Who should read this book?

Absolutely.  While he might not have all the answers, Chris is examining a very real dynamic in our economy that is having massive (and novel) effects on how we live and work.  Anyone who has an interest in digital media will get something from Free, but especially:

• Consultants, Authors, Bloggers, Coaches, Trainers, Speakers and basically anyone who uses digital media to market themselves
• People who want to switch from distributing traditional media forms to digital media – artists, writers, and especially musicians
• Companies and marketers who want to be on the leading edge of the free economy
• Professionals on the technical side of the free information economy – IT professionals, web designers, etc.

A colleague recently asked a question on LinkedIn about how people handle the overwhelming amount of information available online through blogs, websites, and social media.  I thought I’d share my answers:

1)Be OK with not knowing everything - the secret to your everlasting happiness isn't waiting for you in a tweet.

Sometimes I find that I'm afraid that the answers I'm searching for are "out there" and if I don't get as much information as possible, I'll miss them. I've found, however, that in business and in life, there are few answers "out there" that I need, most of my answers were things I knew all along.

2)Beware of the "noise" creating more problems than solutions.

It's similar to marketing - have you ever seen an advertisement for a product that solves a problem you didn't even know you had? I prefer to go out into the world of information when I have a specific challenge that I'm working on.

3)Limit the places you hang out.

There are a lot of conversations happening on the web, and trying to take part in all of them would drive a person crazy. For example, I spend about 10-15 minutes a day on LinkedIn, about 5 on Facebook, and spend about an hour a month looking at blogs. That's it. And I don't miss a thing; or at least nothing that has proven important.

4) Read a lot of books.

The information cycle for books is much longer than the almost instantaneous nature of the internet.  That means that while online information can be more timely, the material in books tends to be more thought out and of a higher quality.

When using LinkedIn, it’s very important to understand and use the features available on the Settings page as they allow you to control many different aspects of your LinkedIn account.  Especially important are the the features that control what others can see about you and your activity – your privacy settings.

There are a number of ways that you can control how and what you want to share with your network and the wider world.  What you decide to share (and what you decide to keep private) is largely dependent on your comfort level and your goals for using LinkedIn.  While it’s useful to spend time becoming familiar with all of the different functions on the Settings page, these are the most relevant privacy settings:

1. Public Profile – From here you can control what parts of your profile are visible to the public, which is anyone who does not have a first-level connection with you.  While it’s usually useful to display all of your information to the public, you might want to restrict some of it depending on your industry and position.
2. Status Visibility – These settings determine who can see your status updates.  If you are using LinkedIn to create a brand or stay on people’s minds, it’s helpful to keep this visibility broad.  If you are using it to maintain your close connections, keep these set to just your connections or your network.
3. Connections Browse – This allows you to control whether your connections can see your other connections.  In general, it’s accepted practice to leave this open (you are on LinkedIn to network, after all), but if you have a specific reason that you would not want others to see your network, you can turn this setting off.
4. Profile Views – When you look at another person’s profile, this controls how you show up in their “Who’s viewed my profile” log.  Again, if you are using LinkedIn to build your brand, you might want to leave your “digital calling card” when you view a profile.  Most people set this to this to the anonymous profile characteristics.

There are many different styles of selling, and many different ways to define those styles.  Two of those styles are Relational and Transactional:

Someone who follows relational selling puts a great deal of emphasis on building a relationship with their potential client.  They focus on creating feelings of trust and comfort with the people they work with.  It’s often called “solution-based selling” because the salesperson spends their time uncovering the needs and challenges of their prospects.

A salesperson who has a transactional selling focus concentrates on the actual sales transaction.  They put their attention on the business exchange with their potential clients.  Because of this they are often more movement- and action-oriented, i.e. they want to get the deal done.

Very few salespeople, however, are one or the other.  It’s best to think of it as a spectrum with relational on one end and transactional on the other.  Most salespeople tend to blend the two styles together while leaning towards one of the them.  This mixture is good because each style has its own pros and cons:

Relational Selling

Pro -It creates a strong relationship that the salesperson can leverage because of strong feelings of “know, like, and trust”. 

Con – It’s easy to stagnate and not move the business relationship forward; creates the danger of being an “unpaid consultant”.

Transactional Selling

Pro – It creates business deals, which is important because the salesperson’s job and focus is to make sales.

Con – It can be seen as aggressive and pushy; and by moving too quickly it’s easy to miss information that is important to the sale.

The ideal, then is for a salesperson to find somewhere in the middle that they are comfortable with, and that is effective for them (which can also vary based on industry and company).

Where do you fall in the spectrum, and how is it working?  If you were going to adjust your selling style, which way should you move?

The ease of access to emerging social media platforms provides a vehicle that allows for individuals to create a personal brand that they can monetize.

Ideas, Implications, and Questions

• Gary skirts the line between being descriptive and prescriptive.  As a descriptive book, it’s an interesting story of what allowed him to be successful.  When it tries to be prescriptive, it falls apart because you can’t establish a cause and effect relationship.  If you look at the book as a guide to using social media, it’s quite useful.
• “If you’re not using Twitter because you’re in the camp that believes it’s stupid, you’re going to lose out.  It doesn’t matter if you think it’s stupid, it’s free communication.  That in and of itself has value, and you should take advantage of it.” (pg 71).  That’s exactly what I told my intern when I started my Twitter account.  I’m still not a huge fan of Twitter, but it’s a communication tool.  That can go for a whole range of internet tools – you don’t have to like them, but don’t leave them on the table.
• Is passion enough?  Gary feels that it is – if you build your brand in an area that you love, you’ll eventually be able to make money doing it.  I agree with him that it’s worth putting in the effort to create a business doing what enjoy.  It’s harder than he indicates, though, especially because:
  • People have to see a need for what you are doing.  If it’s in an area that people aren’t willing to spend money on/be an audience for, it’s going to be hard to monetize.
  • You have to be good at what you do.  Gary points out that you have to have talent and knowledge to build your personal brand.
  • Anything that has low barriers and scalability also has a lot of competition.  If it’s easy for you to get involved, it’s easy for others to get involved.  This is already building up a huge amount of mediocre noise.  Gary might say that the best rise to the top.  Yes, but not always and not automatically.
• It’s ironic that the cover testimonial is from Timothy Ferriss, the author of the 4–Hour Work Week, because Gary is also a huge proponent of working hard, or what he calls, hustle.  “No one makes a million dollars with minimal work unless they win the lottery.” (pg 89).  This is where he skirts the prescriptive/descriptive line, though, because the next sentence is, “The cool thing about hustle, though, is that it’s one more thing that equalizes the playing field.”  It can level the playing field, but it might not be enough.  I know lots of hard working people who haven’t crushed it.   The trick is to work hard on the right activities.

Should you read this book? Who should read this book?

Yes, it’s an interesting snapshot on what can be done with current social media platforms.  And following his credo, Gary is really passionate about his topic.  People who will get a lot out of this book:

• Service—oriented professionals who can profit from a personal brand
• Entrepreneurs who are building a business
• Small business owners who want to build a community
• Professionals who need to be able to sell social media:
  • Web designers
  • Marketing professionals
  • Graphic Designers
  • Copywriters

1. Email Addresses – It’s important to list all of the possible email addresses that someone might use when inviting you to connect, or the LinkedIn system won’t associate that invitation with your account.  You won’t be overwhelmed with emails, however, as the system only uses your primary address to contact you.  Also, it never displays your email addresses.
2. Receiving Emails – This allows you to change the frequency of contact from LinkedIn, depending on what type of information you are receiving.  This is especially valuable if you are in numerous LinkedIn Groups, as you can prevent the system from sending you daily emails from each Group.
3. Network Updates – As your network gets larger, it’s useful to control the flow of information on your homepage, and the Network Updates setting allows you to control who is on your homepage feed and what information is shared.  It’s best to modify this according to how you use LinkedIn; but remember, the more information you receive, the easier it is to keep your fingers on the pulse of your network.
   

After writing Step by Step Networking I’m always on the lookout for other books on networking.  I love finding different tools and philosophies on networking to help refine my approach.  Although focused more on job seekers, Orville Pierson’s Highly Effective Networking is a great primer for how to incorporate networking into your professional career.  The ideas and approaches that he covers are incredibly useful if you are currently networking to find a job, but they also apply to any networking situation.

Orville and I share a belief in the long-term scope of networking.  It’s not just something you do when you need a job or sales prospects, but rather a way of conducting your business life.  For Orville, there are 4 main goals that you can achieve through networking (and I couldn’t agree more):

• Get the word out
• Gather information
• Meet insiders at targeted organizations
• Get in touch with decision makers

Big Thought:

Networking is an important and effective part of the job search when you approach it as process of building relationships with others before they need your services.  Then when they have a job opening, you are a natural choice.

 Ideas, Implications, and Questions

• A lot of the book is dedicated to demonstrating that everyone already has a powerful network of contacts from their previous professional experiences and their personal life.  It shows that you don’t have to attend networking events to start networking; it can be as simple as picking up the phone and reaching out to people you already know.
• If you are not actively using networking as a tool in your career, you should start right now.  Orville points out that “Effective job hunters usually meet the Decision Maker before there is a job opening…” (pg 127).  My corollary would be that effective job hunters meet with the Decision Maker before they need a job.  Too often people wait until they have a need before they start networking, and because of the long-term nature of the process, there’s a delay before they see the results.  I think you should always be networking, because then you can leverage the relationships much more quickly.
• “It’s not about having a huge network.  It’s about using the network you have.”  (pg 47).  True, true, true.  A huge mistake people make is to assume that master networkers need to have huge networks.  While having a sizeable network can be helpful, it doesn’t have to be massive.  If you build strong relationships with a core of well-placed contacts, that’s a great base.  Sometimes I find myself falling into the trap of talking about how big my network is – I’m quick to point out, though, that it’s not necessary to know a lot of people, but rather to know people well.
• The one area that Orville breezes through is on how to leverage the relationships with your network.  He does a great job showing where to find possible connections and how to start and build relationships, but there is an underlying assumption that once you have the relationship, people will automatically give you what you want.  It’s similar to sales books that only show how to build rapport and show value – in the end you still have to ask for the order.  I think Orville passes over it because the “sales” side of networking, the asking for what you want, makes people uncomfortable and he knows that it’s hard to coach for that through a book.  For networking to be successful, though, it’s not only about developing your networking, but leveraging it.
• I’m a huge fan of meeting people for a cup of coffee when I’m looking to add them to my professional network.  It’s a great opportunity to get to know them.  Orville agrees that one on one meetings are a great way to build your network, and he points out that there are three aspects of a great networking meeting (pg 65):

  1. Authentic conversation

  2. Common interest

  3. Information exchange

Should you read this book?

Yes, Highly Effective Networking does a good job of spelling out the basics of using networking as a professional development tool.  If you are looking to use networking to build any part of your professional life, and especially if you are looking for a job right now, it’s well worth the read.  I think Orville really hits the essence of effective networking when he says: “The one most important thing is to make everyone you talk to comfortable.” (pg 23)

Do I like every book that I read?  I was looking over the past reviews that I’ve written for this blog and I realized that all were generally positive.  There are no ruminations that end with me telling people not to read the book.  Is it because I’m not discerning or because I’ve been taught to only say nice things? Or maybe I’m in the employ of the book authors?

The answer is none of the above (although any authors out there – I’m more than willing to accept checks).  It turns out that the reviews are overwhelmingly positive because I only write about the books that are worth writing about.  If that seems a bit unrepresentative, it is.  Although reading any book is never a waste of time, I find that only a certain percentage of the books I read are actually worth taking the time and effort to write a review.  I find I only write reviews/overviews for about 20% of the books I read, so most don’t get the in-depth treatment I give the Book Ruminations

My litmus test is this – after reading the book, do I want to continue to engage with the material? Do I want to clarify my thinking on the book and its subject matter?   One of the biggest reasons I write the reviews is somewhat self-serving – I want to remember the material in the book and my thoughts on it.  I also ask myself if I think that other people should engage with the material as well.  If I think that a book brings up topics that are useful to others, it’s much more likely to be written about.

My challenge to you is this: engage with the books that you read.  Don’t wait for a book review.  If you don’t read much now, then start reading so you can have books that will engage your thinking!  Whether or not you have a public forum to share what you are learning from a book you read, use the amazing resources you have available to get better at what you do and how you do it.  No matter what the topic, others have written about it.  Remember, the best institution of higher learning is your local library.

In my experience, people fall into one of two networking categories.  It’s an incredibly important distinction because the professionals in the first category tend to fail miserably at networking, while those in the second find their career blossoming because of their networking activity. 

The first type is what I call the transactional networker.  People that follow this philosophy see networking as a series of brief encounters; and the goal of each encounter is to get something from it.  These are the people at networking events who pass out as many cards as possible and get as many as they can.  They are on the hunt for those that can use their products and services right away, or know someone who can.  They’ll help other people out, but only if they see it leading to mutual back-scratching.

Often, this isn’t because they are bad people, but rather because they haven’t been taught any other way.  They read a book or heard from someone that networking is about meeting as many people as possible, so they are doing just that.  Transactional networkers tend to ask for business immediately, and can be relatively aggressive.  They view networking as simply a numbers game – the goal is to talk to everyone so they can find as many prospects as they can.  This leads to a short term view of networking because they are in it for the here and now.

The relational networker takes a more long-term approach to their networking activities.  As the name implies, they are focused on building a relationship with the people they meet.  They find out how they can be of service to the people in their network and create strong ties by actively helping their contacts first, without expecting a direct referral in response.

These networkers find more long-term success through their networking because they view each relationship as an investment for the future.  As they get to know their network better and better, there are more opportunities for mutual benefit.  Because it’s not necessary for there to be payback in the immediate future, relational networkers are able to develop a web of connections in which each person is invested in the success of the others.

Looking at networking as a relational versus transactional process is incredibly beneficial.  If that’s the case, though, why don’t more professionals take a relational approach to their networking?  The main reason is that relational networking is by its very nature, long-term.  Business relationships, like any other relationships, take time to build.  Therefore, impatience is the biggest challenge to building a strong network.  That's why so many people fall into the bad habits of transactional networking.

By being aware of these pitfalls, though, you can focus on building your network the right way.  Just like a farmer cultivates the fields for a huge payoff at the end of the summer, spend the time and energy to build your relationships and strengthen the ties to your connections.  When you do this you will find that networking will become a key part of your business development.